Portal: Love as a Construct

Part Ninety-Three. The Respect

Part Ninety-Three. The Respect

"Uhhhh," Claptrap said as they returned to GLaDOS's chamber the next afternoon, "sooooo... y'know how you said we could go look at the mainframe?"

"I do, in fact, recall telling you how to get there not an hour ago."

"Well, funny thing," Claptrap said, tapping the tips of his hands together and not looking at her, "it kinda... how do I put this..."

"You blew it up," GLaDOS supplied, and Wheatley really shouldn't've been surprised that she already knew but he was anyway.

"Well, maybe. I mean, it looked kinda old so it coulda just been unstable. That carpet was so two centuries ago. Might've been the old girl's time to go! Just tired of workin' the old nine-to-five down in the cold, lonely basement – "

"I already know what happened," GLaDOS interrupted. "You got so excited when you saw the carpet that you forgot what else was in there, rubbed your wheel on it, told Wheatley to 'check this out' and then proceeded to touch the mainframe. The ensuing spark set the whole thing on fire."

"That's exactly what happened!" Wheatley exclaimed, leaning forward excitedly. "And it was bloody amazing!"

"No it wasn't!" Claptrap hissed, and Wheatley remembered that he had, in fact, obliterated GLaDOS's mainframe. Which was probably important. Probably.

"I mean uh... it was awful. Simply terrible. A tragedy, to see a classic like that go up. Sad, really. Unfortunate."

"Did I screw a lot of stuff up?" Claptrap asked, not really sounding like he wanted to know the answer, but GLaDOS shook her core.

"I purposely sent you to a section of the mainframe I can do without. It was only still running at all for legacy reasons, but setting up a virtual machine took care of that."

"You are one clever woman," Claptrap said, and Wheatley noted somewhat bemusedly that GLaDOS raised herself a little in self-satisfaction. "You're probably better off without that thing, anyway. It was old enough to be somebody's great-grandma!"

"You have no idea," said GLaDOS. "Also. While I have you here, we need to talk."

"Uhh... I'd love to! but I just remembered something I really gotta do! So... catch ya later!" And he turned around to leave, but was stopped when GLaDOS used a maintenance arm to pick him up and face him back in her direction.

"I'd say 'nice try', except that was the worst excuse I've ever heard."

"That uh... that's a neat trick you got there," Claptrap admitted, looking up to where the claw had disappeared into the ceiling. "Okay, I guess we can... talk. Look, I didn't mean to nuke your granny. Honest! It was a mistake!"

"My granny?"

"That mainframe!" Claptrap said, waving his hands in... Wheatley wasn't sure why he was doing it. He was still working out what hand gestures he used for lack of having a real face. "You kept it around because it was family, right?"

"What are you talking about? No, it wasn't family. The facility is just an endless tangle of redundancy that depends on ancient, increasingly terrible software. That's all."

"Okay, it's not that, so... is this about that secret facility thing? 'cause I still don't even know where it is. Don't I need that info if I'm gonna decide whether I wanna be the backup plan?"

"You'd have to ask Caroline about that," GLaDOS answered. "I don't know where it is."

It got so quiet all Wheatley could hear was the faint buzz of the systems talking to each other. And maybe Claptrap thinking. He didn't seem to have been designed to do much of that, so it was fairly audible at times.